San Francisco ? Barry Bonds is back home, something that should come as a big relief to the surly slugger and the people who run Major League Baseball.

A road trip that ended with a bang – a mammoth shot that brought Bonds to within one home run of Babe Ruth – also highlights the conflicting emotions around the San Francisco Giants’ left fielder.

Bonds was booed and jeered, mocked and scorned, by thousands who came to games in Milwaukee and Philadelphia. They expressed their ire at every opportunity that the embattled star who is at the center of the steroid scandal is about to break one of the game’s most revered marks.

More than a half century after his death, Ruth remains baseball’s most beloved figure. The muscle-bound Bonds, meanwhile, is fast becoming the most reviled.

Home should be a welcome respite from all the derision, likely saving both Bonds and baseball from what would surely be an uncomfortable moment on the road.

Bonds was not in the lineup Monday night, but odds are he will hit No. 714 – tying a mark that stood until Henry Aaron finally passed it 32 years ago – sometime during a seven-game homestand.

No. 715 is a good bet to happen here, too.

It’s a moment that has been widely anticipated – but not always for all the right reasons. Baseball has dreaded it so much that commissioner Bud Selig not only said there would be no official celebration but refused to drive 10 minutes from his office to watch Bonds chase the mark in Milwaukee.

But this isn’t about moving up a notch into second place on the all-time list, it’s about passing a legend.

“It’s overwhelming right now. “It’s a little bit larger than the single-season record home run,” Bonds said. “It’s big. It’s really big.”

Bonds was in trouble long before the season began amid allegations he bulked up on steroids to hit 73 home runs in 2001. But it multiplied with the publication of the book “Game of Shadows,” which alleged in detail Bonds’ use of an astonishing number of muscle-building substances.

Bonds previously has denied knowingly using steroids. But with a federal grand jury investigating him for perjury and baseball investigating him for steroid use, the denials have been conspicuous recently by their absence.

Bonds claims he doesn’t read the newspapers, doesn’t hear the fans, doesn’t listen to the controversy. It was telling, though, that after hitting a Ruthian-like blast Sunday, he refused to answer the lone question about the issue.

“Are we having a steroids conversation or a baseball one?” Bonds asked.

That would all depend on who is being asked.

The public outside of the Bay Area isn’t so eager to embrace Bonds, who didn’t help his cause Sunday when he was asked if he was better than Ruth.

“I don’t know yet,” he said, “but the numbers speak for themselves.”